Cadence
by Howlitzer
Summary: Can't you feel the drumbeat? Hearts like kick pedals as we connect on the numbered battlefield, one hundred yards to fulfilling her desire...


a/n: Something that just flowed from me. I felt like writing it, putting it up, and seeing if it stuck. I guess only you will know if it did.

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><p>His eyes scanned the crowd again, looking for her. He had seen her earlier, in the back of the end zone, straw perched in her mouth as she sipped on a cool drink. Rosy red lips smacking together as she savoured every drop, licking her lips softly to taste.<p>

The heat was coming down, and he strapped on his helmet once more as he headed back onto the field. His team was down a touchdown, the last game of the season. The one that would give them a perfect record, something that the football world revered, treasured.

He didn't care about heroics.

Did she? If she did, he would play the part for her. He was the third-stringer, only being sent out for this last drive with ten seconds left in the fourth quarter because he needed some experience. He'd probably never play another game. Probably would be released after this season.

She sat, watching her team giving up on this game, seeing it as nothing. But she wanted it, she wanted the victory, the perfect record, the pride. She sat in her designer jeans and curvy sweater and silk scarf and continued to sip on her drink, trying to savour it as best she could, because it was occupying her.

He took off the helmet, and she could see him, the blue hedgehog that had been inserted, and she knew him only because he was listed somewhere on the depth chart, the one that only she bothered to read anymore. His green eyes scanned the field as the zebra-men called referees argued and adjusted the clock and made everything so that it was perfect, so that there were no problems.

He found her, pink and bright and beautiful quills revealed in a great mystery to him, and he felt his mind being filled with some sort of message as she stared back with jade eyes.

"I want…"

She mouthed it, hoping that he would catch it in spirit somehow, but he actually, _actually_ caught it for real and nodded towards her, pointing at her position, and she returned the nod for real, and no longer felt the need to pray to God for something so trivial. She shifted forward in her seat, hands gripping the rail in front of her tightly.

The whistle.

The kick.

The ball sailed through the air, high and far and wide, and it bounced on the ground before he scooped it up, and his eyes moved to hers for a split second, his heart beating fast and hard and like music.

Kick-snare-kick-kick-snare. Kick-snare-kick-kick-snare. Kick-snare-kick-kick-snare.

She felt the drumming on her heart, and she stood up, and she waited, as he waited for the enemy to approach, and the fans were jeering, and the coach was yelling, and he looked so dumb and clueless just standing there, looking at her, the girl smiling, licking her lips in anticipation.

He waited, and waited, and waited, and then her lips parted, her voice reaching into him even though he had never heard it before, but it seemed so perfect.

Kick-snare-kick-kick-snare.

Kick-snare-kick-kick-snare.

Fanfare as he could see every syllable from her candy coated mouth.

"Come to me."

Drumbeat picks up.

He is now a ghost.

How many men to beat, they ask. Only twelve more.

Spin past one. Break a tackle, two, three. Stiff arm, juke and break someone's ankle.

An 'aw snap' from the opposing bench as he tears past it. Hurdle the next, then the next with no room for another. Waist-high tackle, textbook. Now what?

Improvise. Front flip while running, lost the helmet. Doesn't matter, keep going.

She's waiting. She laughing, her eyes sparkling, and she's filled with some sort of uncanny pleasure from watching this as the crowd roars in disbelief. Jukes the next guy so hard he falls on his face. Blows past one more, then the finale.

Last man standing ahead, he holds the ball in his free arm and charges forward like a Spartan. Takes the huge guy off the ground and carries him like a shield for thirty-five yards.

"I'm here."

Crosses the plane. No need for the ball anymore, touchdown.

Game over. Perfect season acquired.

He leaps up to where she is, hanging onto the railing as their eyes meet.

Kick-snare-kick-kick-snare.

Kick-snare-kick-kick-snare.

Resonance throughout their hearts. She smiles, he smiles back. A wink added in.

"Don't leave me. Don't you leave me," she whispers. "Stay in this place."

"Is that what you want?"

"You. I want to see you. I want to keep seeing you."

"Then I will stay," he says. He softly touches her hip, snatching the marker from the pocket and writing on the silky scarf.

_Not just fast._

Signature as required. Her breaths are excited, fleeting. Another killer smile hits her.

"You watching the playoffs?" he asks.

"Will you be around?"

"They don't have a need of me. I don't care about their needs. We're on the same page."

"Can I see you, then?"

A smirk. "No, you can't." He gives her a playful salute as he starts to leave.

"See you next season."

He leaps down, and she bites her lip, desperately wanting more of the magic, not wanting to wait for the coming months, but the excitement, the passion and pleasure outweigh all of that, and she knows that the waiting will be painful, but as she remembers the moment, those ten seconds, she can still taste how sweet it was to whisper to him in the wind, and how he came, through whatever was in his way, he came to her and jumped up and teased her and made her want him and want him and want him like nothing else.

The drumbeat has slowed down in his heart, and her voice is more perfect now that he's heard it for real, and he pines for it, but even more for her and every part of her until the next season when he'll be a starter and she'll be there, calling for him on every drive, like it was meant to be.

Kick-snare-kick-kick-snare.

Kick-snare-kick-kick-snare.

The crowds start to leave in celebration, but she lies back in her seat, and savours the still cool drink, sweetness touching her lips and fading slowly, gently. She finishes it and dangles the straw in her mouth, leaving the empty container in the cup holder.

The smell of fresh grass tickles her nose. She loves this place. She has season tickets.

She is skipping the playoffs this year. She takes away the depth chart, the cherished booklet and tears it up and scatters it into the wind.

Her heels click on the stairs as she ascends to the exit.

Kick-snare-kick-kick-snare.

Kick-snare-kick-kick-snare.


End file.
